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“Deal.”
Romeo signals to get me a drink.
This time, I take it.
I tip back the glass and drink until the ice hits my teeth.
* * *
CHAPTERTHREE
Eden
The bus stationlooms ahead of me with the bright lights of a promise of things to come. I feel a lightness in my chest I haven’t felt in so long, it’s foreign to me, though it’s still tainted with the fear of being found. Cloaked in darkness, I walked through the forest like a woman on a mission.
“This is it,” I whisper to myself, hoping that the sound of my own voice will give me more courage.
It doesn’t work. I tremble as if angelic messengers from Heaven itself will come down and block my way.
But no one—or nothing—does.
I’d mapped out the way. I’d taken notes and planned my route, and one day, when we’d gotten a shipment of goods, on a day when Seth was actually out of sight for a minute, I nonchalantly asked the delivery boy where the nearest bus station was.
“Oh, not far,” he said vaguely, waving in the general direction of the woods. “It’s only a few miles from here.”
My mind began to swim with possibilities.
“Oh?” I asked, while I stacked the bags of flour, beans, sugar, and oats on a shelf in our stockroom. “How much would a ticket cost then?” I wondered, not making eye contact with him, as if somehow that would prevent him from understanding my motives. I liked to pretend I was invisible, sometimes.
If only I could be invisible to Seth.
“Oh, a hundred dollars or so,” he said, when heavy footsteps warned us that Seth was approaching.
Our conversation came to an abrupt halt, but I had all the information I needed.
So I made my plans.
I forged my way.
I sold a few of my handmade items Seth didn’t know about, and socked away every penny I could. I made everyone pay me in dollar bills, and when Seth wasn’t home, when I was feelingverybrave, I would count the bills, one at a time.
When I had one hundred, I knew it was time.
A car horn blares in my ear. I jump, my heart pounding as the driver shouts, “Watch where you’re going!”
I look down at my feet and back at the car as it screeches away. I’m standing on the side of the road, next to a solid curb.
I don’t care that they yelled at me or that they beeped their horn. My heart pounds against my rib cage in a frantic staccato because I don’t want to be seen and now everyone is staring at me.
“Hey! How about you watch where you’re fuckin’ going!” I jump and blink at the irate voice of a woman next to me, my cheeks heating when she flips her middle finger at the retreating car.
We couldn’t look more different. Her hair is strangely short around the base of her neck, as if she shaved it for the military or something. Her eyelids are painted a vibrant blue, her lips as red as cherries. She’s chewing gum, snapping it like it did something to personally offend her. “Jesus,” she mutters. “People should watch where they’re going.” Turning to me, her eyes sympathetic, she asks, “You come here to sell somethin’ from the Amish store? Didn’t know we were that close to Pennsylvania, but I’m shit at geography.”
“We-we’re not,” I stutter. I don’t usually stutter, but my teeth are chattering and a chill runs straight through me. When I left, I brought the clothes on my back and the small bag I’d packed but left everything else—including a sweater— behind. The chilly breeze of a North Carolina sunrise does nothing to warm the air around me.
“So you came all the way up here to sell your Amish stuff?”
I blink. “Uh, no, I don’t have anything to sell.”
